Entrepreneurs here have always thought big.
But lately, when it comes to hotels, their ambitions have been shrinking. Sort of.
Glitzy and glamorous mega-casino resorts have lined the Las Vegas Strip for years: Think the 5,044-room?MGM Grand Las Vegas and the 4,049-room Venetian.
Now, some of the most highly anticipated hotel openings are of properties with much fewer rooms, where casinos exist but are not necessarily the star attraction.
The Cromwell, a 188-room property, will welcome its first guests on May 21. Caesars Entertainment, which owns and operates The Cromwell, is billing it as the first “stand-alone” boutique hotel on the Strip.
The SLS Las Vegas, a luxury lifestyle hotel by developer Sam Nazarian, will open Labor Day weekend with such dining options as The Bazaar by celebrity chef Jos? Andr?s and Umami Burger, an eatery that’s already a hit in Los Angeles and New York.
“Vegas has the tendency to do things on a grand scale and this is an opportunity for us to stay away from that and do something smaller, more intimate,” says Karie Hall, vice president and general manager of The Cromwell. “We know who you are before you come in. It’s so much harder to do that when you have 4,000 rooms.”
The new offerings are an acknowledgement of the evolving tastes of Vegas tourists. In recent years, Vegas hoteliers have realized that a growing number of travelers don’t want the typical large-hotel, large-casino experience. Instead, they are flocking to Vegas more for the shopping, shows and food.
“They want to come to Vegas, they still want to do all the things Vegas is good at, but it’s not about the gaming only,” says Ramesh Sadhwani, vice president of hotel operations at Caesars Palace, which has 3,960 rooms. “All of a sudden the typical kind of hotel room that Vegas used to provide is not enough anymore.”
Bruce Ford, senior vice president at industry research firm Lodging Econometrics, says Vegas hotels have bounced back from the recession, but their operating performance is still soft. In other words, they have to provide a variety of options at different prices.
“The casino companies are under a tremendous amount of pressure to renovate properties ? both public spaces and guest spaces ? as they continue to remake the market,” he says.
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Source: Nancy Trejos (2014). Boutique hotels break into Vegas, USA Today http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSSgPmHvUslU published Mar 13, 2014. Viewed Mar 18, 2014.